Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes, and published by GT Interactive. It is the second entry in the ''Unreal'' series, released for Microsoft Windows on November 30, 1999. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels. The game is based on the same technology that powered Unreal, but the design of UT shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action, a trend at the time: id Software's Quake III Arena was released only ten days later. __TOC__ Synopsis Overview Unreal Tournament was designed as an arena FPS, with head-to-head multiplayer deathmatches being the primary focus of the game. The game's single-player campaign is essentially a series of arena matches played with bots. For team matches, bots are again used to fill the roles of the player's teammates. Even on dedicated multiplayer servers, bots are sometimes used to pad out teams that are short on players. UT is known and widely praised by critics and players alike—primarily for its bot A.I., the product of programmer Steve Polge who had earlier risen to fame by designing the Reaper bot for Quake II, one of the earliest examples of an effective deathmatch bot. The player can choose a bot skill level (anywhere from "Novice" to "Godlike") or set it to automatically adjust to the player's performance. Bots can be further customized by changing names, appearance, accuracy, weapon preferences, awareness, and so forth. Development history Unreal Tournament was originally planned as just an expansion pack to Unreal.Tim Sweeney's interview @ PlanetUnreal When it was realized that the multiplayer aspect of Unreal was popular and something that people sought after, Epic began working on a multiplayer expansion pack for the game to fix the problems with online play. At some point during its development, it became clear that the number and extent of the changes to the Unreal codebase that Epic was required to make made Unreal Tournament too incompatible with Unreal. In fact, according to Tim Sweeney, the game has between 200 and 300 C++ classes.Tim talks @ Unreal Universe Thus the expansion pack was broken off from Unreal and made into a standalone game. Unreal Tournament contains nearly all of the content present in Unreal, except for the maps and music. Every map from Unreal, including the 10 default maps; the Fusion Map Pack maps; the Return to Na Pali maps; the GW Press Addon maps; the cut maps DmMorbfanza, DmSplash, DmEclipse and DmDespair; and the 3DFX/S3TC Demo maps, were considered for the game. Ultimately, only Curse, Deck16 and Morbias were selected for the retail version as [DM-Curse[]], [DM-Deck16[]] and [DM-Morbias[]]; with Cybrosis, HealPod, Mojo and Shrapnel making it through the Epic Bonus Pack as [DM-Cybrosis[]], [DM-HealPod[]], [DM-Mojo[]] and [DM-Shrapnel[]]. 4-team CTF was planned for Unreal Tournament, but was dropped halfway through development. According to Alan Willard, this was so mod makers could implement the mode.Alan Willard's .plan The first publicly available version (version 322) of the demo was released on September 17, 1999. A version 321 was briefly and accidentally made available to the public the night before, but was rapidly withdrawn. The version 322 demo is for use with 3dfx video cards only. This early version of the demo omits DM-Tempest. A patch was provided to update version 321 to 322.Demo Patch v322 Two days later, a patch to the 3dfx-only demo was provided to correct a server crash that occurred whilst using the Web-based remote administration facility. The first full demo (and a patch to the 3dfx-only demo to convert it to the full demo) was released September 28, 1999. This took the demo to version 338. A Version 338a demo intended to test a server map change problem was accidentally released but rapidly disowned by Epic. The Version 338 demo is not compatible with the final version of the full demo. A final demo for Unreal Tournament was released on October 19, 1999Version 348 Demo release announcement and contains 5 maps from the game; one map for each gametype. The demo has the maps CTF-Coret, DM-Morpheus, DM-Phobos, DM-Tempest, and DOM-Sesmar. The Linux version of the Version 348 demo was released October 20, 1999. According to Tim Sweeney, the reason of why UT didn't have good OpenGL support is purely because of market share (at the time, DirectX was the main API used for development).Tim Sweeney interview @ R-POV.com An additional patch to the version 348 demo to fix a crash whilst playing back recorded demos was released on October 20, 1999. An additional patch to update version 348 servers was released November 9, 1999. Network compatibility is unaffected by this patch.History of the changes to the demos between the 3dfx-only demo and the final Version 348 demo Console versions Unreal Tournament has two console versions, each one with its own features. The version for the Playstation 2 console was developed in-house by Epic Games themselves, while the Sega Dreamcast version was developed by Secret Level, who also got access to Epic's and DE's own assets. Secret Level were contacted by Infogrames (the publisher of UT) after the refusal on part of other developers.Josh Adams's another post @ UT forums The DC version also had to branch drastically from the PC version, to the point that the PC version couldn't really use the DC maps, aside from the dedicated servers used to run the servers at SegaNet.Josh Adams's post @ UT forums The main differences between the PC versions and the console versions, thus, are as follows: * Many maps had to be removed from the game: ** Both versions of the game lack most of the Bonus Packs 1-4 maps. The only notable exceptions are [CTF-Face[]] (present in the DC version), DM-Agony (present in both versions), [DM-HealPod[]] (present in the DC version), DM-Malevolence (present in the DC version) and DM-SpaceNoxx (present in the DC version). ** The Playstation 2 version also lacks the maps CTF-Command, DM-Barricade, [DM-Morbias[]], DM-Morpheus, DM-SpaceNoxx, DM-StalwartXL and, DOM-Ghardhen. ** The Sega Dreamcast version also lacks all of the PC Assault maps (due to the gametype not appearing) and the maps CTF-November, DM-KGalleon, DM-Tempest, DM-Turbine, DM-Zeto, DOM-Cryptic and DOM-Sesmar. * As a counterbalance, there were plenty of new maps for them as well: ** Maps exclusive to both console versions are CTF-Phalanx, CTF-Sepulchre, CTF-Spirito, CTF-StormFront, CTF-Sundial, DM-Brickyard, DM-CanyonFear, DM-Core, DM-Flux, DM-Loathing, DM-Sorayama and DOM-Osiris. ** The Playstation 2 exclusive maps are DM-Coagulate and DM-Hood. ** The Sega Dreamcast exclusive maps are DM-Babylon, DM-BlockParty, DM-ColdSteelPressure, DM-Damnation, DM-Depot, DM-Dust, DM-GearBox, DM-Girder, DM-Google, DM-Halberd, DM-Industrial, DM-Infernal, DM-Instinct, DM-Megaplex (as a SegaNet exclusive), DM-Nebula, DM-NeoTokyo, DM-Outskirts (as a SegaNet exclusive), DM-Paladin, DM-Pantheon, DM-Sector9, DM-Singularity, DM-StationControl, DM-Underlord, DOM-Coagulate and DOM-Hood. ** Notably, many of these arenas are present in the PC version, but as separate combat areas of the Rocket Arena maps RA-Akuma (Babylon, ColdSteelPressure, NeoTokyo, Sector9 and Underlord), RA-CliffyB (Dust, Gearbox, Girder, Google and Paladin) and RA-Inoxx (BlockParty, Megaplex, Singularity and StationControl). * As for mutators, the absences in the console versions include: ** Both versions of the game lack the PC mutators Flak Arena, Sniper Arena, Chainsaw Melee, and the BP1/2 mutators. ** The Playstation 2 version also lack the PC mutators Pulse Arena, Rocket Arena, Shock Rifle Arena, Instant Rockets and Jump Match. Interestingly, the mutators FatBoy and Stealth do appear, but as unlockable mutators. ** The Sega Dreamcast version also lack the PC mutators FatBoy and Stealth. * Naturally, as a counterbalance, the console versions have their own mutators: ** Mutators exclusive to both console versions are Hyperspeed and Slomo. ** The Playstation 2 also has an exclusive mutator called BigHead (unlockable). * The Sega Dreamcast version also had to cut the Assault mode and most of the other player models, leaving only the Male Soldiers and their skins as selectable.Unreal Tournament @ SegaRetro.org * Instead of three deathmatches with war machines and a final boss battle, these versions' Challenge ladders feature four boss battles with three characters exclusive to them: Damien, Rampage (known as WarBoss in the PC version) Dominator (the only known official instance of a full-blood Skaarj in the first UT) and, of course, Xan Kriegor. * Characters in the console versions (especially PS2) are more detailed and have more polys to them. Release dates *November 23, 1999 - Unreal Tournament (PC) - 2 CDs *January 19, 2000 - Unreal Tournament (Mac) *October 26, 2000 - Unreal Tournament (PS2) - 1 DVD *October 27, 2000 - Unreal Tournament: GOTY Edition (PC) - 2 CDs *March 14, 2001 - Unreal Tournament (DC) - 1 RD-Rom *March 21, 2001 - Unreal Tournament: GOTY Edition (Mac) *August 29, 2001 - Totally Unreal (PC) - 4 CDs ** Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament: GOTY Edition, and an Unreal Championship/''Unreal II'' preview disc *November 6, 2006 - Unreal Anthology (PC) - 1 DVD ** Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament: GOTY Edition, Unreal II: The Awakening, and Unreal Tournament 2004. - Published by Midway Games, who took publishing rights from Atari. Game content Gamemodes The game contains the following gamemodes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Domination, Capture The Flag, Assault and Last Man Standing. There's a seventh mode, called Tournament Darkmatch, however, it doesn't have its own maps. Characters The characters in the game are just selectable skins, sorted by models. Many of the model/skin combinations represent the different teams. Weapons Various weapons are made available for single player as well as multi-player mode. Items Teams Mutators (*) "Rocket Launcher Arena" must NOT be confused with the Rocket Arena mod. Soundtrack The music was composed by Straylight Productions with Alexander "Siren" Brandon at its head, and Michiel van den Bos with additional contributions by Dan "Basehead" Gardopée, Peter "Skaven" Hajba, Andrew "Necros" Sega, Tero "Teque" Kostermaa, and Kai-Eerik "Nitro" Komppa. Like Unreal (and the expansion pack Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali), the game's music was done in UMX format, based on Tracker musicDocument about the music in UT'99 from Alexander Brandon, which resulted in good quality music and less size. There was never an official soundtrack, but a lot of people obtained it directly from the game (it was in Impulse Tracker format inside the UMX packages) and converted it to more popular formats. Game of the Year Edition Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition was released on October 27, 2000. It includes the first three bonus packs released for the original game, consisting of 20 all-new maps and skins, and it includes three mods developed by the Unreal community: Tactical Ops, Rocket Arena, and Chaos UT. Reception Unreal Tournament is still, arguably, the most popular ''Unreal'' series game ever released. It generated an enormous community and was many people's first multiplayer experience. Unreal Tournament is capable of using maps created for Unreal. The Unreal content was automatically replaced with Unreal Tournament content when running an Unreal DM map with one of the Unreal Tournament gametypes.Unreal Technology Announcements - Steve Polge 19 November 1999 Essential files Here, you will find all the links to the downloads of the essential files for your Unreal Tournament installation. Trivia * An easter egg in the ending sequence reveals that there were five Liandri Grand Tournament winners before Xan Kriegor. They are named (in chronological order): Green Marine, Roan Terg, Magnus, Geos Dryon and Pariah. It seems that the winners' names are actually nicknames of Epic staff. Green Marine comes from Brandon "Green Marine" Reinhart, one of the programmers. * According to an interview from FilmAndVideoMagazine, Unreal Tournament played a major part in the creation of AI (Artificial Intelligence).Unreal City @ FilmAndVideoMagazine.com * According to Shane Caudle, the intro sequence was inspired by a city he designed for a comicbook of his own creation.Shane Caudle interview @ machinima.com * According to Cliff Bleszinski, there were other ideas which never made into UT, except one: * Almost everyone at Epic Games, with CliffyBCliffyB's .plan and GreenMarineBrandon Reinhart's .plan at the helm, have a strong dislike of the ZeroPing mod, to the point that ngStats, the stats system used by UT, doesn't register stats from servers using the mod. External links and references * Unreal Tournament @ Wikipedia * Unreal Tournament (video game) @ TVTropes See also *''Totally Unreal'' *''Unreal Deal Pack'' *''Unreal Tournament 2003'' *''Unreal Tournament 2004'' *''Unreal Tournament 3'' *''Unreal Tournament 4''